WSJ. Magazine What's News: November 2016

Goings On in the World of Culture & Style

Desktop Settings

F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

Desktop Settings

For his first foray into product design, Joseph Dirand—the French architectural star behind boutiques for Balmain, Givenchy and Balenciaga and the Paris restaurants Loulou and Monsieur Bleu—has partnered with Puiforcat silversmiths on a limited-edition collection of desk accessories. Dirand studied the archive of the firm’s renowned designer Jean Puiforcat (1897–1945) and distilled the craftsman’s signature Art Deco style down to an intimate relationship between the circle and the square. This became the leitmotif for his nine-piece Bureau d’Architecte set, which includes a letter holder, a paper tray and bookends. “I tried to imagine how Puiforcat would create these things today, and then added my layer,” Dirand says, speaking both metaphorically and literally of the gold-plated brass accents. As he points out, “The silver becomes gold through reflection.”
Price upon request through Cristina Grajales Gallery; 212-219-9941. —Sarah Medford

Fuzzy Logic

F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

Fuzzy Logic

This month at NYC’s Carlyle Hotel, Sarah Flint, the 28-year-old creative director of her namesake shoe label, will introduce a fashionable amenity: shearling, loafer-inspired slippers in men’s and women’s versions. Guests in select VIP rooms will be offered complimentary pairs; others can purchase them upon request. “I used buttery shearling and intricate hand embroidery to capture the hotel’s mix of old-world charm and modern sense of luxury,” Flint says. $875–$895; The Carlyle; 212-744-1600. —Tara Lamont-Djite

Food Chain

Emma Cleary

Food Chain

Eddy Buckingham, a 33-year-old Australian who once worked as Justin Timberlake’s personal mixologist, might seem an unlikely candidate to open an authentic Chinese restaurant
in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
But Buckingham, who has traveled extensively throughout China since childhood, says he’s up to the task: “From Guangzhou to Sichuan, Chinese food has been a lifelong passion of mine.” This month he and restaurateur Jeff Lam are launching a trio of spots on Doyers Street. Chinese Tuxedo, the flagship occupying a renovated 19th-century Chinese opera house, will focus on “traditional Cantonese dishes with modern plating,” says Buckingham. In the same building, the street-front Good Sort cafe will offer Aussie espresso drinks and Chinese teas, while the lower level will feature a casual dining space called Tong, which means “gang” and refers to the crime syndicates that once met there. “This used to be their clubhouse,” says Buckingham. “Now it’s a place to grab a bowl of noodles and a beer.” chinesetuxedonyc.com. —Howie Kahn

In Fine Form

Courtesy of Othr

In Fine Form

“There are very few areas that technology hasn’t disrupted, but home and garden has seen no disruption since molded plywood. It’s pretty fertile ground for a business start-up,” says Joe Doucet, CEO and co-founder of Othr, a pioneering company that produces high-design home accessories on demand using 3-D-printing technology. Doucet and fellow designers Dean Di Simone and Evan Clabots debuted Othr earlier this year, attracting investments from funders behind Uber and the Standard Hotels. The brand collaborates with an ever-expanding team of talent, including Brooklyn’s Fort Standard studio and the Stockholm-based firm Claesson Koivisto Rune, and new products are launched on a biweekly schedule. On November 9, Othr unveils its latest line, Chicago designer Felicia Ferrone’s porcelain Lilium carafe and cups set. Looking forward, Othr plans to move into retail with pop-ups, including a co-branded event this month with fashion label The Arrivals in New York. “We’re talking about the third industrial revolution,” says Doucet. “This is just the way things are going to be made.” othr.com. —Thomas Gebremedhin

New From Nouvel

New From Nouvel

There’s always been an Old World splendor to Jean Nouvel’s ultramodern buildings. And with his new exhibition, Mes Meubles d’Architecte, opening October 27 at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the French architect reveals a hidden dialogue between his furniture designs and the museum’s centuries-old pieces. Underscoring the point, there’s also Jean Nouvel: Reflections, Matt Tyrnauer’s new mini-documentary that looks at the architect’s 53 West 53rd Street tower as well as his soon-to-open Louvre Abu Dhabi, whose latticework dome riffs on traditional Middle Eastern geometric patterning. Recalling Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim breakthrough of 20 years ago, Tyrnauer says the new Louvre could herald Nouvel’s “Bilbao moment.” —Ian Volner

A Step Ahead

F. Martin Ramin, Styling by Anne Cardenas

A Step Ahead

After Roth Martin left Hedge, the San Francisco design gallery he co-founded, he wanted to create products with a wider appeal assembled in an ethical, eco-conscious way. So he and his business partner, finance veteran Stephen Hawthornthwaite, developed Rothy’s, a line of stylish flats made with yarn spun from recycled plastic water bottles. “We wanted to design something consumers could feel good about,” says Martin. The company, which launched this summer, has now taken ownership of its entire manufacturing chain and installed solar panels on its factory in southern China. What’s more, the first new round of Rothy’s styles, with 11 fresh colorways, has just been released. rothys.com. —Sara Morosi

Chicago Style

Adrian Gaut, courtesy of Habita Grupo

Chicago Style

This fall, Grupo Habita, the hip Mexican hospitality group, is expanding its portfolio to Chicago, with two properties, The Hollander and The Robey, on the border of the Wicker Park and Bucktown neighborhoods. “Even though the area has loads of restaurants and lots of energy, we are the first hotels,” says Habita co-founder Carlos Couturier. Set in a 1905 warehouse building, The Hollander is a next-gen hostel featuring a look Couturier describes as “Canadian cabin in the year 2020,” with plywood beds and steel shelving. The Robey, which occupies a 1929 Art Deco office tower, offers 69 classically minimalist rooms, many with skyline views. “We’re preserving the building,” says Couturier, “and a hotel lifestyle—about natural light, high ceilings and a sense of well-being—that’s disappearing rapidly.” thehollander.com; therobey.com. —Michael Slenske

Sun and Shadow

Bea De Giacomo

Sun and Shadow

On the outskirts of Jaipur, India, stands the Jantar Mantar astronomical observatory, a group of stargazing structures built in the 18th century. Italian designers Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pinto took the monumental instruments’ curves and angles, as well as their faculty for tracking celestial movements, as inspiration for their Out of the Blue series—eight gypsum sculptures bathed in cyanotype solution, a chemical mixture used in early photography,
and set outside for a specific period. The surfaces in shadow stayed white, while the parts hit by the sun turned varying shades of blue depending on the intensity of exposure. “It’s an investigation of light and how it affects shapes,” says Di Pinto. “Each piece captures a specific moment that disappears quickly.” The first edition was completed this past spring, while a second is currently in the works. Lelli Mami and Di Pinto are principals in Studiopepe, a creative consultancy they founded a decade ago. Much of their work, from brand identity to retail installation to furniture design, is for major international clients including Fritz Hansen, Cassina, Tod’s and Max Mara. But, as Di Pinto says, a project like Out of the Blue represents something more personal: “We wanted to make products with­out the logic of branding.” studiopepedesign.it. —Julie Coe

High-Water Mark

F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

High-Water Mark

Fashion illustrator Richard Haines took on a new medium this fall: bathing suits. “His work is very painterly,” says Adam Brown, the founder of swimwear brand Orlebar Brown, who asked Haines to channel scenic lakeside holidays on a new collection of trunks and T-shirts. This month the London-based label opens its third U.S. store, in Miami’s Brickell City Centre. orlebarbrown.com.—Isaiah Freeman-Schub

Green Zone

Courtesy of SproutsIO

Green Zone

Jennifer Broutin Farah built the first prototype of her indoor microgardening system while researching urban agriculture at MIT’s Media Lab in 2013. She and her partner, Kamal Farah (now her husband), spent the next three years developing SproutsIO, a soil-less “smart” planter that uses a combination of hydroponics and aeroponics to grow everything from root vegetables to finicky herbs year-round. The microgardens have already been embraced at No. 9 Park and Menton, two Boston restaurants owned by James Beard Award winner Barbara Lynch. The game-changer for restaurants? By manipulating the levels of lighting, water and nutrients through an app, control-obsessed chefs can actually tweak the qualities and flavors of greens and veggies, making baby carrots sweeter or upping the kick of peppercress. “It opens a whole new world of possibility,” says Broutin Farah. sprouts.io. —Christopher Ross

Box Set

F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

Box Set

Glossier—the cult beauty brand from Emily Weiss, founder of the beauty blog Into the Gloss—often introduces products that gain an instant following (one even earned a wait list of 10,000). Its new holiday gift box—the limited-edition Black Tie Set, wrapped in a black ribbon—features a black gel eyeliner, cheek highlighter, clear lip gloss and nail polish in the brand’s signature blush tone, #glossierpink. “We were inspired by the minimal look of the early 2000s,” says Weiss. “Not all women want to wear a face full of glitter for the holidays.” Also inside: a lookbook styled by The Line founder Vanessa Traina, who Weiss says was a natural partner. Traina agrees: “Both the clothes and makeup are about accents,” she says. “The spirit is easy, something you don’t have to think twice about.” New Yorkers can skip the virtual rush and snag a set at Glossier’s SoHo headquarters, which will open in December for customers to shop the entire line. glossier.com; 123 Lafayette St., New York. —Katie Becker

21st Century Ryokan

Courtesy of Hoshinoya Tokyo

21st Century Ryokan

In a city saturated with high-end hotels, Hoshinoya Tokyo, which opened this summer, feels different: more discreet, more Japanese, but also more modern than comparable new properties. The hotel’s hot-springs bath is perched atop the 17-story building, but rather than looking out to the city, it opens like a James Turrell installation to the sky, without even a pane of glass separating bathers from the sun, moon, clouds or rain. Though Hoshinoya sits among skyscrapers, guests observe traditional ryokan practices, such as removing shoes when they enter. Sourcing the spring water below the hotel meant drilling down almost a mile into the earth. Hoshinoya, a company with five luxury properties in Japan, hopes to not only fill rooms but also help make its innovative take on the country’s traditional hospitality a coveted commodity. A Bali property is slated to open next. hoshinoyatokyo.com. —Tom Downey

Facts & Stats: Joan Rivers

ITV/REX/Shutterstock

Facts & Stats: Joan Rivers

Throughout her almost 60-year career, Joan Rivers pushed boundaries, from her days as a female pioneer in comedy to her success as an Emmy-winning talk-show host, best-selling author and Tony-nominated actress. Leslie Bennetts, author of Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses and Liberation of Joan Rivers, charts some of the late comedian’s most memorable moments.
28 YEARS years Rivers was banned from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson after starting her own rival show on Fox.
$1 BILLION Value of merchandise designed and sold by Rivers on QVC during her 24-year career at the televised home-shopping network.
'65 year Rivers became an overnight success in a star-making appearance with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.
28 MILLION amount a Saudi prince paid for Rivers’s fabled Manhattan apartment, modeled on Versailles, after her death.
1 MOTTO motto that guided Rivers’s life through extremes of triumph and catastrophe: “Never stop believing. Never give up. Never quit. Never!”
12 BOOKS Books penned by Rivers, including Diary of a Mad Diva, which was published two months before her death, at 81, in September 2014.